To allow communication between the various nodes of a network, the address of a node should be discoverable when a new node is added to the network. Unfortunately, in some networks, the discovery and identification of new nodes is a tedious manual process. For example, in some types of networks, each user must call the service provider and provide the MAC address for their user equipment and wait for the address to be registered before they can begin use.
In addition, in some types of networks, such as point-to-multipoint networks, there exists the possibility that two or more nodes or users may transmit at the same time, creating a collision of data signals on the network. A point-to-multipoint network may be a network where a node or device is able to directly communicate with two or more other nodes or devices. A problem arises in some networks because one or more nodes may be unable to detect such a collision.
Therefore a need exists to provide an improved discovery process, and to detect and resolve possible data collisions that can occur in some types of networks.